There’s a perception, among an apparently burgeoning male group, that men are being demonised by women. Excluded, purely on the basis that they were born with a penis. Made to feel that whatever they say or do, it will automatically be bad, because they’re a man, and men are bad. Faced with a choice of either being publicly ashamed of their gender, or being lambasted as “part of the problem”. Victims, of sexism. I decided I was going to explore this issue, and concisely wrap it up in a blog post. Continue reading The Demonisation of Man→

At the time, I imagined that Medium’s most likely means of financing its existence would be increasingly heavy advertising. But this year, the platform switched to a subscription model in which users pay to read the site’s best content. Well, in theory the best, although that does depend on whether the best writers choose to lock their content behind the site’s optional paywall. If Medium’s best writers opt to keep their feed open to the wider Internet, in practice the best content will still be free. Continue reading Has Medium.com Fixed Broken Publishing?→

“As a result of other posts on this blog, I’ve got used to being asked for help in unmasking “trolls”. Most typically, the requests have come from political activists who think they have the right to verbally attack those with whom they don’t agree, but should themselves be immune from any such attacks. Because… well, you know… Because their opinion is right, and everyone else’s is wrong, basically.

“It seems that in the back yard of every adult service stream, there’s a selfless guy offering to free disgruntled users from the horror of ‘porn addiction’. But have you ever stopped to think what ‘porn addiction’ is supposed to mean, and how such an addiction could work in a clinical sense?

Given that the term is applied to a much broader base of sexually-motivated vices than simply buying or using pornography, why is it called ‘porn addiction’ and not ‘sex addiction’? Is it even an addiction at all? And if ‘porn addiction’ is a myth, should we not just accept it as “a white lie which is helping to eradicate evil?”Continue reading Why ‘Porn Addiction’ is a Myth→

“Last Thursday afternoon, I walked out of a boardroom after taking part in a conference call. In itself that was an achievement for someone who, back in the spring, was so crippled with social anxiety that he could barely even face a doctor.